Girls In Tech

Building on the great success & feedback they received from last year’s life sciences forum, Springboard has launched AllThingsLifeSciences/CleanTech: 2010 earlier this month.  This is Springboard’s 20^th venture capital forum which will recruit, qualify, coach and support emerging growth ventures led by women in the life science and clean tech sectors.  The program will source, qualify, coach and showcase women-led emerging growth companies from the life sciences and clean tech sectors who are seeking equity capital for product development and expansion.

Since 2000, Springboard has produced 19 Venture Forums featuring over 400 women-led companies that have raised $5 billion in equity, grants and corporate investments and have provided positive returns for their investors, including 7 IPOs. This year’s program combines virtual access with in-person events in order to maximize and deepen the connections between program participants and Springboard’s international network of entrepreneurs, investors, sector experts and trusted business advisors.

Here are some examples of what a few of last year’s participants have accomplished:

·         Eso-Technologies raised $1 million in Series A funding, which will be put towards finalizing their prototype.  Investors include DaneVest Tech Fund and Phenomenelle Angels.

·         Michelle’s Miracle closed their first tranche of $1.5 million Series A financing.  Investors include Phenomenelle Angels and Fisher Properties.

·         Sequella was the recipient of a two-year, million dollar plus grant from the National Institute of Health to further develop SQ641, a new class of antibiotic, to be used to treat tuberculosis.

For more information or to apply to participate this year, click here.  Or to view a fact sheet on the program, go to: AllThingsLifeSciences/Cleantech 2010 Venture Forum Fact Sheet.

With 185 women earning a college degree at age 22, for every 100 men, women are now outpacing men in obtaining higher education, as they have been in the last few decades. (In a recent Times article stated, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.) Additionally, more women are now employed than men due to the fact that men are more likely to work in cyclical or declining sectors. Thus the question becomes: In light of this, how likely are women to choose to marry? And, are women changing their expectations of what the man would bring to a marriage?

Things have changed since our parents were marrying; and yet some things are still the same:  For example, in 1950, less than three-quarters of college-educated women had married by age 40, compared to 90% of their contemporaries who stopped schooling after high school.  These days, women who are college-educated are more likely to marry than their less-educated counterparts.  But they do tend to marry later in life, with only near 1/3 of them marrying by age 25.  Therefore, we are not marrying for the financial security, but more for the relationship itself.   As the Times article states, “the incentives to marry and form a family today are shifting from the old model of specialized and separate roles — a model that was less appealing for career-oriented women — to a new model focused on a shared vision for how to live one’s life.”  In this,  couples choose to marry on the basis of their shared visions of a balance of work, downtime, and family which are more suited to  each other.  As they each are earning an income, they are not dependent on the other in this way, causing less friction and less divorce, (according to one author in this article).

So in this case, women are no longer concerned about marrying someone with a higher earning potential than them.  They may be looking for someone who will, instead, have a better ability to share and take part in parenting tasks, for example.  They might also be looking for someone who will balance their stressful work life with hobbies that the two have in common to enjoy in their own time.

To read more about four specialists’ views on this topic, read the whole article, here.

Also, tell us your thoughts by leaving a comment, below.

(quote courtesy of New York Times, February 21, 2010.)

This is a guest post by Jennifer Webb, with additional details from GITNYC chapter leader, Tommy Jenkins.

Before you know it, March 12th will be here.

Why is that exciting? That’s the day South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) blasts off — a guaranteed good time to network with your technology peers whom you otherwise wouldn’t get a chance to meet face to face, get up to date on emerging technologies from the brightest minds in the industry and broaden your areas of interest!

GIT will kick off the week with a networking event from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, March 12th, in the downstairs room at Fogo de Chao. You can expect wonderful libations, terrific food and great company.

If you want more information on the event, drop an e-mail to Kristine Gloria for more information on the event.

I, personally, am very excited to attend as it is my first GIT event and first SXSWi Festival – I can’t wait to stop by the Women Techies United booth (Stand 219!), which will include reps from GIT, as well as Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, Astia, DevChix, Digital Sistas, LinuxChix, National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), She’s Geeky, Women 2.0 and Women Who Tech. These 10 organizations aim to help tech women network at SXSW.

As a Dell employee with a passion for women’s leadership and development, I set a yearly goal to get engaged in a broader “Women in Tech” network in Austin, and GIT gets me there! I look forward to seeing everyone there.

Of course, we’d like to thank the fine people at Porter Novelli Austin, Unwired Nation and Ranch Road Design and Printing for donating their time, talent and treasure! Plus, thanks to the GITNYC chapter, who got us included in the Women Techies booth, and to Sanford Dickert for providing the funds necessary for inclusion.

We’d also like to thank David Hou and Lan Nguyen from DramaFever.com for creating the Women United logo:

Without all of you, this wouldn’t be happening!

See you on the 12th!
Jennifer Webb

The Flash Gaming Summit is back for its 2nd year! Join in for a one day conference dedicated to fostering the growth and success of the Flash games community. The conference will bring together leaders in the flash game space to share industry insights and strategies on successful game design, development and monetization.

The program includes panel discussions plus a keynote by Jameson Hsu, CEO of Mochi Media. Other panelists include:

* Chris Hughes, FlashGameLicense.com

* Jim Greer, Kongregate

* Vikas Gupta, Social Gold

* Renaun Erickson, Adobe

* Mark Skaggs, Zynga

*David Stewart, Playdom

They will speak on topics such as “Money in Flash: Next Gen Monetization of Flash Games,”  “Everything About Sponsorship & Licensing” and “4 keys to a successful social game that all game developers should know.”

For more info. & to register, go to: http://www.flashgamingsummit.com/index.html

Jump to Register: click here

Women in Games International (WIGI), in partnership with Social Gold, today announced that it will host its 3^rd annual mixer at GDC 2010 on Wednesday, March 10 from 6:00pm – 9:00pm. This year’s industry exclusive VIP party will be will be held at one of the most unique venues in San Francisco — the California Historical Society Museum located a few blocks away from Moscone Center. The reception will bring together innovative developers, publishers, and top leaders from the industry along with great food, drinks, and plenty of excitement. 

Women in Games International works to promote leadership, inclusion, and advancement of women in the global games industry, and is centered around the philosophy that diversifying the game development, media, academic and publishing workplace results in not only a more equitable space, but better products.

“For the 3^rd annual GDC event, we’re focused on expanding awareness among growing and emerging markets within the games industry,” said Asra Rasheed of Women in Games International. “We are delighted to have Social Gold as our title sponsor as they represent our initiative to diversify and encourage involvement from other areas of gaming.

Social Gold provides a full-featured virtual economy platform that enables publishers to create and manage their own white-labeled virtual currency, provide an unparalleled payments experience to their users, and optimize their virtual economy using robust analytics. The company has an experienced and dedicated team founded by former leaders of Amazon.com, who were responsible for engineering such products as Amazon.com’s Flexible Payments Web Service and Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk. 

“As the industry-leading virtual economy platform for powering virtual currency and payment solutions, we are pleased to be officially co-hosting this year’s GDC VIP reception with Women In Games International,” said Vikas Gupta, founder and CEO of Social Gold. “With the growth of the virtual goods market, we see many opportunities to foster this growth among our industry peers, including events like this reception hosted by WIGI.”

Final applications for the The Founder Institute’s Spring 2010 LA, Denver/ Boulder, Paris and Singapore/ Asia Pacific semesters are due this Sunday, Feb 28th.

Ashoka’s Changemakers is looking for your great ideas that are catalyzing the economic advancement of women through technology. They hope you will join them for: Women | Tools | Technology: Building Opportunities & Economic Power, a collaboration in conjunction with ExxonMobil and the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW).

Changemakers® is a community of action where we all collaborate on solutions. They know they have the power to solve the world’s most pressing social problems.  They’re already doing it, one project, one idea at a time.

How do they do it? They talk about the issues, share stories and mentor, advise, and encourage each other in group forums, even engage in friendly competition.  (….That’s where you come in!)  They form surprising connections and unexpected partnerships across the globe that turn the old ways of problem solving upside down.  So, get involved & see why their mantra is “Everyone is a Changemaker.”

For details on the contest,click here:  http://www.changemakers.com/en-us/technologywomen for the Competition Summary.

There is an Early Entry Prize Deadline coming up on March 1^st, 2010 for a chance to win one of two early entry prizes. In addition to winning a digital camera, early entry prize winners will be featured in the Women in the World summit on March 12-13, 2010, and highlighted in Ashoka’s Changemakers publication. Enter by the final competition deadline on April 14^th, 2010 and have the chance to vie for one of three $5,000 prizes. Winners will also be invited to participate in a collaboration workshop with Ashoka’s Changemakers and ExxonMobil during summer 2010.  So, check it out — You may be the next “Changemaker” we talk about on GIT…

Some interesting statistics on virtual goods, courtesy of Social Gold by Jambool.

Social Gold is a full feature virtual economy platform that developers can use to create their currency systems, monetize it using in-game payments by Social Gold, and manage and grow their economy using Social Gold virtual economy analytics. Social Gold was founded by veterans from Amazon.com — people who built the foundational infrastructure for their e-commerce and web services, and who had gone on to build some of the most popular social games.

Use Social Gold to do many things, like: buy points for your favorite games on Facebook using credit cards, Amazon Payments, Google Checkout, PayPal or your mobile phone!
See more at: https://www.jambool.com/socialgold/home

The Girls in Tech network is full of wonderful and inspiring women from all professions, background and walks of life. I thought that from time to time it might be interesting to profile members and I thought I would start with a Q&A with Chelsea Rustrum. I cannot tell you how Santa Cruz is buzzing about this wonderfully bright and very accomplished woman.

When Chelsea was in 8th grade, her brother challenged her to learn how to build web sites and use technology but refused to give her “ANY” guidance. Up to the challenge, she built her first site and learned how to upload it within 24 hours of reading forums, tutorials, and help sites. Now, that’s my kind of ambition.

Here are excerpts from the Q & A:

Q: What do you do for a living?
CR: I am self-employed. I founded Free Mania, an online Free Stuff portal in 1997. Free Mania provides a community for individuals interested in saving money and trying products before buying them. I also do larger marketing contracts including strategy and execution utilizing SEO, social media, and fully integrated campaigns.

Q: What do you do on a day to day basis at work?
CR: Every day is different, but I try to focus on revenue generating activities as much as possible. My day-to-day activities include everything from creating content, to working with developers, to building out my social media strategy, etc. I also reach out to form partnerships with sites that can offer my visitors value. Currently, I’m also working on moving Free Mania over to the Drupal platform.

Q: Where did you go to college and why?
CR: I went to college at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. I applied because of their teaching philosophy and utilization of technology in business. The beach, the rolling green mountains, and the small town atmosphere didn’t hurt either.

Q: Where are you from?
CR: I am from Rogue River, OR.

Q: What did the path look like that brought you into your profession?
CR: I was always a bargainer by nature. I’d tell my mom what was cheaper by the ounce at the grocery store when I was 6 years old. When the Internet first graced our household in 1997 when I was 14, the first thing I typed into the search engines was “free stuff.” There were only a handful of freebie sites at the time, so it just seemed natural to start Free Mania.
I also had my hand as a Marketing Programs Manager for ClickTracks Web Analytics from 2006-2008.
Since then, I’ve done contract work for many companies, developing and executing an effective online marketing strategy.

Q: When did you decide you wanted to be a “girl in tech”?
CR: I don’t think I decided. I am naturally a girl in tech, so it just sort of fit.

Q: Can you recall a particular time where you thought being a woman inhibited your career?
CR: I think you just have to be outspoken. If you know what you want, make it clear. So no, I can’t really remember a time when I thought being a woman inhibited my career.

Q: If you could give 3 tips to young girls interested in tech, what would they be?
CR: 1.) If you don’t know the answer, you can find out. Keep trying until you find the answer. Use your resources, find mentors, ask for help, and above all, be wiling to uncover answers all on your own. If you remain determined, you can accomplish and learn nearly anything.
2.) Find something you’re crazy passionate about and throw yourself into it without expectation of compensation. If you do what you love, the money will come.
3.) Don’t every let anyone tell you can’t do anything. The sky is the limit if you believe it is.

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I have been on a personal project kick the last couple of years. I have had a couple blogs, did some iphone apps, and of course lots of interior design projects. The reason I am sharing this is because having these personal projects keeps me motivated, inspired and happy. And my 9 to 5 work greatly benefits from the personal exploration as well.

Check out this video about the power of personal projects  and consider starting your own project asap.

Ohh, I just started another project yesterday.